TY  - JOUR
AU  - Stevenson,Betsey
AU  - Wolfers,Justin
TI  - The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14969
PY  - 2009
Y2  - May 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Betsey Stevenson
University of Michigan
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
5224 Weill Hall
735 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091
E-Mail: betseys@umich.edu

Justin Wolfers
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
611 Tappan St
Lorch Hall #319
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Tel: 734-764-2447
E-Mail: jwolfers@umich.edu
AB  - By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men.  The paradox of women's declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries.  Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men.  These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging -- one with higher subjective well-being for men.
ER  -